Saturday, April 6, 2013

$400 Budget Bathroom Makeover

I've been eager to do a makeover of our kids' bathroom for years now. So we jumped into this project in March with the help of our tax return. Since my husband has gone back to school and continues to work full-time, I knew I would need to do the bulk of the work. I'm so glad that it is now done! I learned so much along the way as we are not really do-it-yourself folks around here.

Here is how the bathroom looked at the beginning of March.

oak cabinets, carpet, glaring lights, a mediocre paint job

So I set to work with the following steps:
- painted both rooms of the bathroom
- adjusted the counter with shims & redrilled the under screws so the sidesplash and countertop were properly alligned
- removed carpet, carpet pad & vinyl flooring and cleaned up subfloor
- installed vinyl plank flooring and transition pieces, including pulling the toilet & reinstalling (my husband took care of most of the toilet work)
- removed mirror (my husband helped a lot with this)
- hung new mirrors
- replaced the lights with my husband's helpWhen we removed the old lights we discovered that the electrical boxes weren't centered over the sinks. Since we do not have the skills of an electrician and didn't want to add another big expense, we positioned the lights as best we could and decided to let them just be off-center for now.
- hung a new towel rack
- sanded, primed & painted the existing cabinets
- caulked the counters & base of toilet

I'd still like to accessorize, give the trim a fresh coat of white paint, replace the brass doorknobs & hinges and replace the light in the shower room, but those things can happen bit by bit in the months to come.

Total expenses - $392.09 + some taxes (difficult to calculate because I did not keep meticulous records and some items were purchased online and the tax rate is different than items purchased in town)
Savings:
sale of old mirror +$30
gasoline savings earned by buying Lowe's and Home Depot gift cards at the grocery store to use for this project +$15.50

Grand total monetary cost for project = $346.59 + taxes (amounting to less than 7.6%)

My husband was a great support & encouragement to me during this project. Without his help with the kids at night and support when I felt things were not going to turn out, I would would not have been able to complete this.